Tag Archives: DVD

Be Kind Rewind (2008) was written and directed by French filmmaker Michel Gondry. It’s a movie about the dawn of the DVD and a VHS video rental employee’s attempt to thwart off the digital competition by creating his own versions of popular movies. This practice is known as “Sweding.”

Be Kind Rewind currently sports a 65% fresh rating on rotten tomatoes and 6.4 on IMDB.

A colossal box office flop. The film only reeled in four million opening weekend.

Dave Chappelle was supposed to play the main character, who is instead played by Mos Def.

Chappelle’s Block Party documentary in 2005, apparently inspired the film’s urban setting, though the idea was one Gondry had envisioned for years prior.

In an interview with avclub.com in 2008, Gondry said: “Chappelle was intrigued, interested in this project for a while, and he mentioned a couple of films that we did remake: Driving Miss Daisy, Rush Hour 2, that was his idea… Boyz N The Hood as well.”

Enlisting Dave Chappelle would have made a difference at the box office. Nevertheless, the legacy of Sweding has lived on.

Four years after the film was released, people are still cranking out Sweded films. Including this Casino Royale Gem.